Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!cbnews!military
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: Diego Garcia
Message-ID: <1990Aug15.032056.25897@cbnews.att.com>
Date: 15 Aug 90 03:20:56 GMT
References: <1990Aug9.015845.8381@cbnews.att.com>
Sender: military@cbnews.att.com (William B. Thacker)
Organization: McCaw Cellular Communications, Inc, Seattle, Wa
Lines: 68
Approved: military@att.att.com



From: uw-beaver!mcgp1!flak (Dan Flak)

In article <1990Aug9.015845.8381@cbnews.att.com> DAN.S.SULLIVAN@OFFICE.WANG.COM (Dan Sullivan) writes:
>  I am confused. I thought Diego Garcia was a very small base that was
>used as a listening post.  What exactly is Diego Garcia?
>thanks, in advance

I spent a year in Deigo Garcia, one month (Aug 80) working the
USAF airlift effort supporting the Middle East.

Diego Garcia, British Indian Ocean Territories, is named for
Magellan's navigator, and is located approximately 1,000 miles
south of Sri Lanka (About halfway between Northwestern Austraila
and Saudi Arabia).

Used primarily as a coconut plantation 100 years ago (the
non-operating plantation is still there and is a museum and
wildlife refuge), it now also contains a U.S. Naval Support
Facility. The island is a horse shoe shaped (with the "open end"
of the horse shoe facing north) atol which runs approximately 13
miles from one end of the horse shoe to the other. The east end
of the horse shoe is the plantation, the north west end contains
the naval base. The runway runs diagonally across the midsection
of the west leg of the horse shoe, and is approximately 12,000
feet long.

Although the facility is capable of landing just about anything
(space shuttle excluded?), it can't park that many aircraft (at
least as of 1980). Three C-141's and a C-5 will just about max
out the island. Also, the island isn't set up to accomodate many
visitors. They'd have to be set up in tents. However, this isn't
much of a problem. Being 7 degrees south of the Equator, and in
the middle of a large mass of water, the temperature is a
constant 80-95 degrees with warm breezes.

The air route for supply to the Middle East is West Coast,
Hawaii, Phillippines, then either overfly the Thai penninsula,
or zig zag through the straits (sorry I forget the name) between
Thailand and Indonesia to Diego Garcia. Then onto Oman, or
whatever.

With unaugmented crews handing over the aircraft to prepositioned
crews at every stop, it will take about 2 days for cargo to go
from California to the Middle East. Augmented crews, flying 24
hours a day (literally - there would be one crew change) and in-
flight refueling may knock 8 to 12 hours off the trip. Assuming
you don't want totally exhausted troops on arrival, you may want
to rest personnel at Clark Airbase for an additional 24 hours.

Due to the parking problems mentioned above, limited materials
handling equipment, and few maintenance personnel / facilities
(the latter two limitations could be "beefed up"), it is unlikely
that more than a half dozen aircraft can be cycled through the
island each day. (That's 6 sorties Clark - Diego - Mid East and 6
sorties for return for a total of 12 aircraft in the
bi-directional pipeline). 

Diego Garcia is a base which is to be transited by aircraft. It
isn't one where we could establish a squadron easily.

It would be interesting to speculate if we could support this type
of mission without either Diego Garcia or Clark Airbase (or
both!).
-- 
       Dan Flak - McCaw Cellular Communications Inc., 201 Elliot Ave W.,
    Suite 105, Seattle, Wa 98119, 206-286-4355, (usenet: thebes!mcgp1!flak)